Jannie Hunter
The Bible and the quest for Developmental Justice:
The case of Orphans in Namibia
“This is a paper I did not want to write because I would be happier
if the data did not exist.” (Graburn 1987)Introduction
The above citation from Graburn comes from a situation of child abuse
in Canada, which as such, might be somewhat different from that which
we wish to address in Namibia. This does not mean that child abuse
does not appear in Namibia. It certainly does, and is reflected in the
media as well. The quotation is appropriate though, because it also ad-
dresses the overall situation with regard to children who cannot defend
themselves and are exploited in a variety of ways in the world. Frighten-
ing facts are available with regard to the exploitation and vulnerability of
children throughout the world, which may be worth mentioning as
background to our exploration of the Namibian situation and the quest
for justice in the country.
There are over a 100 million street children in the world and as many as
200 million children spend most of their waking hours working (Nord-
strom 2004a:25). Between 40 and 60% of known sexual assaults are
committed against girls younger than 15 years of age, despite the fact
that 90% of the world’s children live in countries which ratified the
United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (Ibid.:26). Further,
the number of child prostitutes in the world exceeds 200 million (Ibid.
2004b:11). Over half of the world’s refugee population of 17 million
people is children (Ferris 2004:21). In Johannesburg, South Africa, the
trauma centre reports as many as 40 cases of incest per day. Abitbol and
Louise (p. 27) say: “A nation collapses when a majority of her youth
wakes up in the morning facing nothing but despair, fear and frustra-
tion.” The statistics mentioned here are mostly the result of extreme
poverty in which millions of the world’s population live, not only in
Africa but also in countries considered as “First World Countries”. A
statement by Wolfgang Huber points to the “alarming poverty” in so-
called wealthy countries. He notes (referring to Germany): “The large
number of children who live in poverty is scandalous.” (2005:4).